Missouri colleges consider move to performance funding

Thursday, August 25, 2011 | 5:14 p.m. CDT

BY
The Associated Press

JEFFERSON CITY — College presidents from across Missouri convened Thursday in Jefferson City to discuss performance funding as a solution to fix problem of dwindling state support for higher education.

Missouri was once considered a national model for performance funding, which links funding of public colleges to such measurable accomplishments as graduation rates. State leaders abandoned that approach a decade ago amid an economic slide.

A Tennessee-based consultant told the nearly 200 higher education officials at the summit that several states are seeing measurable academic improvement in response to such an approach.